[beebeepka]

> Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another.

Easy to say duh to this in 2021 thanks to education, internet, and everything. Must've been a breakthrough a few hundred years ago. For various reasons

[shadowgovt]

It's an interesting idea but I'm seeing whispers of No True Scotsman fallacy.

It's true, of course, that the end result will be a subset of the people leading and most not (which is an outgrowth of basic specialization theory: if everyone's in charge of coordination and leadership, nobody has time to do the work that needs coordination and leadership). But was the new elite always apart from the followers and supporters, or are the rulers overthrown and during that process some subset of the overthrowers become a new elite due to the needs of specialization? Or, to say it another way: would the "new elite" have ever been an elite if they hadn't won?

George Washington was never commissioned in the British army. Fidel Castro was the bastard son of an immigrant. Had their revolutions not succeeded, would history remember them as elite?

[optimalsolver]

Despite getting obliterated, the upper strata of Confederate society are probably still remembered as being elite.

[shadowgovt]

I would call that the exception that proves the rule because of the "Lost Cause" myth.

There are enough people who think the losing side wasn't the wrong side to keep the legend alive for the Confederate leadership.

[wyager]

A lot of people still have trouble with the fact that successful popular protest movements are usually just part of the legitimating process for some political shift which has already occurred, and not a significant causal factor in that shift occurring.

[beebeepka]

Agreed. I think it's an ego problem. You know, the most common one with us humans